Draft: using Dublin Core elements in WebDAV

I've put together a Draftlet (attached, in plaintext)
defining a way of using WebDAV to tag resources with Dublin
Core elements. This is something that came up in the
versioning meeting last week (I think it was during the
variant meeting afterwards; JimW asked if anybody had looked
into it, and we all said no, so we figured we should come up
with a way of leveraging them without having to worry about
what they were doing :-).
The one point that I feel a little uncertain about is the
use of <ol> and <li> (HTML elements) to express a list
(Dublin Core elements can appear more than once). It seems
like there Ought To be some way of doing this that doesn't
come from HTML; but (a) I don't think it really matters, and
(b) it has the convenient property that a browser will
display it properly. :-) Comments?
--
/====================================================================\
|John (Francis) Stracke |My opinions are my own.|S/MIME supported |
|Software Retrophrenologist|=========================================|
|Netscape Comm. Corp. | This sentance has threee errors. |
|francis@netscape.com | |
\====================================================================/

WEBDAV Working Group J. Stracke, Netscape
INTERNET DRAFT October 5, 1998
<draft-ietf-webdav-dublin-core-00>
Expires April, 1999
 Use of Dublin Core Metadata in WebDAV
Status of this Memo
 This document is an Internet-Draft. Internet-Drafts are working
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Abstract
This document specifies a standard mapping for using the metadata
vocabulary of Dublin Core ([DUBLIN]) in a WebDAV ([WEBDAV]) server.
Contents
STATUS OF THIS MEMO
ABSTRACT
CONTENTS
1 INTRODUCTION
2 MAPPING
2.1 NAMESPACE
2.2 PROPERTY NAMES
2.3 PROPERTY FORMAT
3 INTERNATIONALIZATION CONSIDERATIONS
4 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
5 IANA CONSIDERATIONS
6 COPYRIGHT
7 INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
9 REFERENCES
9.1 NORMATIVE REFERENCES
9.1 INFORMATIONAL REFERENCES
10 AUTHORS' ADDRESSES
1 Introduction
This document specifies a standard mapping for using the metadata
vocabulary of Dublin Core ([DUBLIN]) in a WebDAV ([WEBDAV]) server.
WebDAV defines a protocol for manipulating metadata on a Web resource;
in WebDAV, an element of metadata is called a property. Dublin Core
defines several metadata elements, with standard names and standard
meanings. A server which stores Dublin Core metadata for its content
may wish to make the metadata available as WebDAV properties; to
forestall the emergence of nonstandard ways to provide this
functionality, this document defines a standard mapping from Dublin
Core element labels into WebDAV property names.
2 Mapping
2.1 Namespace
WebDAV properties are expressed as XML elements ([XML]), using XML
namespaces ([XMLNS]) to permit different groups to define sets of
properties without interfering with each other. XML namespaces are
named by URIs. This document defines a namespace for use by Dublin
Core; its URI is <ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2413.txt>. This is a
URI for [DUBLIN], so it seemed like a reasonable choice. Note that,
although this URI may one day not be a valid mechanism for fetching
[DUBLIN], that will not make it unusable for the purpose of defining
this namespace.
2.2 Property Names
A WebDAV property representing a Dublin Core element has the same name
as the Dublin Core element label.
2.3 Property Format
Since a WebDAV property can occur on a resource only once, while a
content item may bear more than one instance of a Dublin Core element,
some mechanism is needed to represent the multivalued elements in the
singlevalued property syntax. Since WebDAV properties are expressed
in XML, there is a simple mechanism available: an ordered list
element, where each list item corresponds to an element. For example,
the Creator elements of [DUBLIN] might be expressed as follows:
<DUBLIN:Creator>
 <ol>
 <li>S. Weibel, OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.</li>
 <li>J. Kunze, University of California, San Francisco</li>
 <li>C. Lagoze, Cornell University</li>
 <li>M. Wolf, Reuters Limited</li>
 </ol>
</DUBLIN:Creator>
(assuming that a namespace declaration PI has appeared to define
DUBLIN: to refer to the Dublin Core namespace.)
3 Internationalization Considerations
XML is an inherently internationalizable format, able to express any
language or character set; as a result, all WebDAV properties,
including the Dublin Core properties defined here, are
internationalizable.
4 Security Considerations
The security considerations of this mapping are those of [DUBLIN] plus
those of [WEBDAV].
5 IANA Considerations
The namespace defined here is isomorphic to the element namespace
defined in [DUBLIN], so this document introduces no new IANA
considerations beyond those of [DUBLIN].
6 Copyright
 The following copyright notice is copied from RFC 2026 [Bradner,
 1996], section 10.4, and describes the applicable copyright for this
 document.
 Copyright (C) The Internet Society April 5, 1998. All Rights
 Reserved.
 This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
 others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
 or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published
 and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any
 kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph
 are included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this
 document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
 the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
 Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of
 developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for
 copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be
 followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than
 English.
 The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
 revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assignees.
 This document and the information contained herein is provided on an
 "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING
 TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING
 BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION
 HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
 MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
7 Intellectual Property
 The following notice is copied from RFC 2026 [Bradner, 1996],
 section 10.4, and describes the position of the IETF concerning
 intellectual property claims made against this document.
 The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any
 intellectual property or other rights that might be claimed to
 pertain to the implementation or use other technology described in
 this document or the extent to which any license under such rights
 might or might not be available; neither does it represent that it
 has made any effort to identify any such rights. Information on the
 IETF's procedures with respect to rights in standards-track and
 standards-related documentation can be found in BCP-11. Copies of
 claims of rights made available for publication and any assurances
 of licenses to be made available, or the result of an attempt made
 to obtain a general license or permission for the use of such
 proprietary rights by implementors or users of this specification
 can be obtained from the IETF Secretariat.
 The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any
 copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary
 rights which may cover technology that may be required to practice
 this standard. Please address the information to the IETF Executive
 Director.
8 Acknowledgements
The triviality of this specification is due to the hard work put into
[WEBDAV], [DUBLIN], [XML], and [XMLNS] by their respective authors and
working groups.
The need for this specification was pointed out (by Jim Whitehead, I
think) during the variants discussion held after a meeting of the
versioning design team of the WebDAV working group.
9 References
9.1 Normative References
[DUBLIN] S. Weibel, J. Kunze, C. Lagoze, M. Wolf, "Dublin Core
Metadata for Resource Discovery." RFC 2413. Online Computer Library
Center; University of California, San Francisco; Cornell; Reuters.
September, 1998.
[WEBDAV] Y. Y. Goland, E. J. Whitehead, Jr., A. Faizi, S. R. Carter,
D. Jensen, "Extensions for Distributed Authoring on the World Wide Web
- WebDAV." Draft-ietf-webdav-protocol-08. Internet Draft, work in
progress. Microsoft, U.C. Irvine, Netscape, Novell. April, 1998.
[XML] T. Bray, J. Paoli, C. M. Sperberg-McQueen, "Extensible Markup
Language (XML)." World Wide Web Consortium Recommendation
REC-xml-19980210. http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-xml-19980210.
9.2 Informational References
[XMLNS] T. Bray, D. Hollander, A. Layman, "Name Spaces in XML" World
Wide Web Consortium Working Draft, http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-xml-names.
10 AUTHORS' ADDRESSES
J. Stracke
Netscape Communications Corporation
501 E. Middlefield Rd.
Mountain View, CA 94043
Email: francis@netscape.com